Can football do this?

[rjslomo]

Sorry. I didn't read the thread but wanted to pass on my experience at the Fells Point Festival today. Normally (even on the Saturday) you'd see about 99% Ravens stuff & maybe 1 person in O's gear. This year, there were thousands of people in O's gear. It's been amazing.

[Miller192]

I really don't know how to answer these questions

For me, it all starts with the fact that both teams are from Baltimore and will always be a part of who I am. I don't know that baseball can do anything better than football nor do I really care. I love both teams with equal passion and there is room in my heart and wallet for both.

[Elrod]

Earl said it best. "You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."

Totally agree. Baseball is the perfect game and Earl's quote pretty much sums up why. That is my favorite baseball quote, along with "This ain't a football game, we play everyday." That one's also by Earl.

I'm a casual football fan and root for the Ravens, Skins and Cards, in that order. I can sit down in front of the TV and enjoy a game, but I don't really start paying attention until around Thanksgiving. Out here in AZ, I've got Cactus League, D'Backs and AZ Fall League. That's 9 months of live baseball! Football starts to heat up right around the time I'm starting to experience baseball fatigue, so it works out perfect.

I could do without all the hype, though. Nothing more frustrating than listening to a sports radio channel during the MLB pennant race and playoffs, only to get a quick mention of the baseball scores and then onto extended NFL analysis. That's why late June, on through July and August are my favorite months as far as sports are concerned. Nothing but baseball.

[Frobby]

Would this thread have been made if the Orioles were the same team as they were the previous 15 years?

Nope.

Football is the most perfectly set up sport. When they play their games, how they play it, where they play it... it's the ideal sport for marketing.

Teams fluctuate in football so much. You see new competitive teams every year. You're more likely to make a run.

This run by the O's is awesome, but it's also their first in 15 years.

I'm a Detroit Lions fan. I like them just as much as the O's.

But watching that Lions playoff game was so much more incredible than watching the Orioles game last night. And that water cooler talk is nonsense. There is more water cooler talk with the NFL every given day, Hell, even in the offseason there is more than with baseball.

Baseball is great, but NFL is just in a whole different stratosphere. And I'm not talking about my personal opinion of which sport I like more, because I like them equally. Hell, the NBA has caught up with baseball at this point, when it comes to popularity, excitement and stars.

I think you (and a lot of the posters who responded to you) misunderstood the tone and tenor of my question. I am not making an argument that baseball is better than football. I'm asking whether the slowly building drama of what is going on with the Orioles right now, and the way it kind of grips a city, is something that is matched when a football team is getting towards the end of a successful season. And I was genuinely asking a question, my question was not rhetorical.

There are things about football I prefer to baseball. If there was a random football game on TV between two good teams I don't root for, and a random baseball game between two good teams I don't root for on the other channel, I'd most likely choose the football game. I like the pace and athleticism of the game. It works on TV really well. It is easier for a bad football team to dig out of a hole in a year or two, and no football team can buy division titles like the Yankees have done for the last decade. So,

[Frobby]

Would this thread have been made if the Orioles were the same team as they were the previous 15 years?

Nope.

Football is the most perfectly set up sport. When they play their games, how they play it, where they play it... it's the ideal sport for marketing.

Teams fluctuate in football so much. You see new competitive teams every year. You're more likely to make a run.

This run by the O's is awesome, but it's also their first in 15 years.

I'm a Detroit Lions fan. I like them just as much as the O's.

But watching that Lions playoff game was so much more incredible than watching the Orioles game last night. And that water cooler talk is nonsense. There is more water cooler talk with the NFL every given day, Hell, even in the offseason there is more than with baseball.

Baseball is great, but NFL is just in a whole different stratosphere. And I'm not talking about my personal opinion of which sport I like more, because I like them equally. Hell, the NBA has caught up with baseball at this point, when it comes to popularity, excitement and stars.

I think you (and a lot of the posters who responded to you) misunderstood the tone and tenor of my question. I am not making an argument that baseball is better than football. I'm asking whether the slowly building drama of what is going on with the Orioles right now, and the way it kind of grips a city, is something that is matched when a football team is getting towards the end of a successful season. And I was genuinely asking a question, my question was not rhetorical.

There are things about football I prefer to baseball. If there was a random football game on TV between two good teams I don't root for, and a random baseball game between two good teams I don't root for on the other channel, I'd most likely choose the football game. I like the pace and athleticism of the game. It works on TV really well. It is easier for a bad football team to dig out of a hole in a year or two, and no football team can buy division titles like the Yankees have done for the last decade. So, please don't interpret my question as knocking the sport or saying that people who prefer it are somehow not as smart as baseball fans. I'm not saying any of that.

I am merely asking whether what is going on with the Orioles right now is something football can match, and you'll notice my question was specifically directed to Ravens and Redskins fans, so I wasn't looking to get a bunch of answers from people who don't care about football.

I hope that clarifies what I was asking and why I asked.

[Sanfran327]

Football lacks the drama baseball has. A World Series victory means 50x more to me than VT or the 49ers winning a championship. You earn what you get in baseball so much more than in any other sport other than perhaps hockey with the way the regular season is designed. It would be so much more gratifying to me to see the Orioles win than anything else I could hope for as a sports fan.

[PeteU]

I enjoy football tremendously. I love the Ravens, root for them with a passion, and football is far and away my favorite of the "move the ball from one side of the rectangle to the other, all governed by Lord Clock" type of sports.

But baseball is such a unique, one of a kind, sport that it will always be the number one game in my heart.

Why is that? I think my number one reason is postseason celebrations. Unless we are talking about a last second field goal or an overtime sudden death touchdown, most celebrations in football are anti-climactic. They slowly begin with 40 seconds on the clock. By the time the clock hits :00, everyone and their mother is crowded on the field, wandering around aimlessly like stoners at a Phish concert.

Baseball always gives us instant euphoria. No one steps on the field until the last strikeout or the last catch or the last put out. But when that happens, instantaneously you feel a rush of pure joy amongst the victors, and you see 25 men and a handful of coaches all rush towards a single pile on. That is something unique amongst all team sports.

[Orioles0615]

It's hard not to be romantic about baseball.

[SouthRider]

I will only add this..... Friday's win was the first time I watched an O's game in a long, long time with the same passion and intensity of watching a Ravens' playoff game. It was weird, but refreshing. It reminded me just how much more enjoyable both sports are when your team is in the hunt.

[Moose Milligan]

I understand Frobby's question and I think football can do it to a degree. It's just a different feeling. You don't get the almost daily games, but you get the buildup through the week. You get the injury reports, the practice reports, you can sit around and analyze stuff on message boards all day...come Sunday, you know where you'll be.

It's a different type of feeling, but it exists.

Sports are the best, though...my dad is absolutely obsessed with politics and I hate it. One day he goes "It's just like sports! You root for your team." Maybe on the surface, but not really...sports unites, politics divides. There are so many different people from so many different backgrounds on here that are united by the Orioles right now...people that might not have anything to do with one another if it weren't for the Orioles. Politics brings out the ugly, politics divides.

[fyodorovitch]

This is kind of wordy, but I'm feeling romantic today.

I don't really follow football, so I can't speak to that side of things; however, I will say that the rhythm of baseball is very unique. Football (to me) is kind of stop-start-stop-start, which drives me crazy. Baseball is rhythmic, too, but very different.

It's a slower game. It's true, in a low-scoring game the middle innings can start to drag a bit. But that moment on a 3-2 count with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth (as a cliched example), when the pitcher pauses and is about to start his wind-up, you can see on his face that he probably dreads throwing the pitch. He throws over to first in order to delay it. In that moment, it's only the pitcher and the batter and the catcher, and the performance of either in that instant has to be so precise it's insane. The batter fouls off pitches which only adds to the tension. Add to that the magnified importance and pressure of a playoff game and it's truly a study in human psychology. The anxiety builds and builds.

You have followed the team day after day from April to October. You've gotten to learn the personalities and faults and strengths of each player. The long season has engendered a real fondness for the players themselves, and the fate of your entire season could hang on this one pitch. I realize the same kind of pressure exists in football (even moreso, perhaps) but there I think it's as much collective pressure as it is individual pressure. In baseball, the pitcher alone has to throw it and if he makes a mistake it will haunt him (kind of like missing a routine field goal to tie the game with seconds on the clock and your season on the line).

In football, hope kind of drips away with every second. It doesn't matter how good your players are, at some point a comeback becomes more and more mathematically improbable. In baseball, however unlikely, there's always hope.

[Guest rochester]

Frobby - you will get a different opinion from folks on here than from the mainstream. Through baseball you "live" with the team through good and bad when you are as hooked as us folks on here are.

Maybe memories are always better but what has made football incredibly popular is what I don't like about it. It doesn't seem geared to the football fan but the "I am only here because its cool" fan, which is ok, but this whole thing with the marketing robots and theme songs (although MNF was fine - by itself) makes me feel like I am watching WWF, except it is not fake (hopefully)

When I first think of football I think of Bradshaw, Unitas, Sayers, Barry Sanders, the D's with just plain tough MF's that are human, not those that weigh 350 and run a 5 sec. 40. The names too: Mean Joe Greene, Purple People Eaters, etc.

Combine the "all bets are off" mentality of the past with common sense regarding injuries then I am hooked again. And give us football fans the Super Bowl back - have a fake one instead, most only "watch" the commercials and halftime to see if someone drops some clothing.

Saying all that, I gotta go watch Falcons/Redskins - it will be great

[RHall31]

I think the Ravens gripped the city and the surrounding area as much or more so when they made their Super Bowl run. The buildup and excitement is very similar to the Orioles this year in that neither winning streak was really expected. I think thats part of what made both of these runs so special. Nobody really thought it was going to happen and it just keeps getting better!

[backriver111]

Ravens doing their best Orioles impression for magical runs. I for one have that same feeling again...What a year it's been!

[Dipper9]

I can never understand the mentality that you have to be a fan of one over the other. To me, I'm die hard Orioles AND die hard Ravens. I love them both and bleed when either goes down.

This weekend was just awesome. FanFest on Saturday and the Ravens head to the SuperBowl on Sunday. Its step one to the Ravens and Orioles both winning it all in 2013!